A short-range infrared communication for swarm mobile robots

This paper presents another short-range communication technique suitable for swarm mobile robots application. Infrared is used for transmitting and receiving data packets and obstacle detection. The infrared communication system is used for an autonomous mobile robot (UPM-AMR) that will be used as a low-cost platform for robotics research. A pulse-code modulation (PCM) digital scheme is used for transmitting data. The reflected infrared signal is also used for distance estimation for obstacle avoidance. Analysis of robot's behaviors shows the feasibility of using infrared signals to obtain a reliable local communication between swarm mobile robots